Response to 'GTA 5 and Dawah - Smile2Jannah'

 Before I begin, above is the link to the YouTube video I am talking about, posted by the channel 'Smile2Jannah'.

As a Muslim, and a gamer, I felt like I had to call out this channel on a few things!
First of all, promotion and the sort is pretty normal for a huge game like this. There's plenty of other games non-gamers never hear about, because it just doesn't get the press attention GTA attracts. Yes, we know its full of killing, stealing, running people over etc, but it's not real, so that really doesn't concern me. You might think that sounds cold, but how many movies/TV shows contain all of the above and more, but nobody bats an eyelid? It's not real, that's why. Yep, it is just a game. In fact I didn't buy mine on release. I didn't even get my PS3 on launch day, I got it almost two years later (mostly because I'm a cheapskate!) I must admit I do agree it's kinda silly to go and pick up a game at midnight. I'm happy to wait until the next day or even later, I do want to sleep. Contrary to popular belief, not all gamers stay up playing games all night. Stupid stereotype.

 
 Does it really matter who was first in line to buy the game? You wouldn't have said anything if it was a white, non-Muslim. Non-issue! I agree with you on the guy who played for 50 hours with a 'diet plan', sounds kinda crazy, but you say it's real, so let's just go with that. I must correct you on fibre 'pills' too, I've been on them myself in the past (not for extreme gaming, I must clarify!) and they are basically psyllium husk powder encased in a capsule for ease of taking it. You can buy it in powder form too, and mix it into food or drinks. I asked my doctor about it, its not a pill and its not harmful. It is also completely ridiculous to take time off to play a game. The day that 'The Last of Us' came out, I was working a full day. It was the first game I pre-ordered and I knew it would be waiting for me when I got back. I wasn't willing to miss a day of work for it. There's plenty of gamers just like me too, that would think it silly to take time off for pleasure. 

Next I must talk about asking for time off work during Ramadan. Are you actually serious?! I'm pretty sure there's nothing in Islam that says you need time off. In fact I'm pretty sure you are supposed to carry on as normal. You can do things like read more Quran, pray extra prayers etc in the time you are not working. A man is expected to be a breadwinner. Maybe take a day or two off for Eid instead. There's no point taking time off work just because you can't eat or drink. Man up!! I've worked through Ramadan, it's not a big deal. Doing my work takes my mind off the not eating part, if I'm stupid enough to just think of food all day.

The Islamic book you held up at one point in the video is a book of hadith/dua and is only meant for referring to when needed. It's not the type of book you'd read cover to cover in one sitting anyway. I own it and its very useful for referring to!

Movies are also made on big budgets. Games are becoming more and more like playable movies, so the budget is only going to match that. Yes, its a lot of money, but that's what the developers have chosen to do, with demand from gamers just one part of it. You could put this same thing into many different industries. Putting money into something in expectation of getting more out of it.

 Standing there with a controller saying "die die!" is such a stereotypical view of gamers. Maybe a little kid plays like that (which they shouldn't be playing games such as GTA anyway!), but us adults are usually pretty sensible about stuff. Again its not real so pretty much a non-issue.

So in conclusion, you kind of set yourself up for this criticism for being a non-gamer talking about a game/gamer in the typical way. We're all obsessed with killing (albeit in games!), we stay up all night playing, we go out at midnight to pick up the latest release (which is true in some cases, but it's hardly something to get bothered about). Maybe you should actually talk about Dawah in a better way than saying we should do it instead of playing games. You probably have hobbies too, so sue me if mine is playing games. It's not instead of any of my religious duties, its simply something I enjoy in life. Have you seen some people who claim to do Dawah anyway? They literally just get as many people as possible to convert and add it to their 'tally'. A sort of 'notch on the bedpost', if you will. Address issues like these, then maybe I'll take you seriously! Other than that I think most Smile2Jannah videos are pretty funny, but it just always falls flat if you try and address something you seemingly have no idea about.

Why its disrespecful to holiday in Egypt

 So this subject was recently brought to my attention when hearing that people still consider Egypt a place to visit......  What about going to a country where recently over 500 Morsi supporters were sentenced to death. 

How can you possibly justify going to have a good time in a place where if you oppose Sisi and his army, you are in danger of losing your life. Why not just go elsewhere? Not to mention, Mohammed Morsi was democratically elected as President, he didn't force his way in like General Sisi. Whether you like Morsi or not, you cannot deny this fact. If there were a majority against Morsi, perhaps they didn't vote? Which is the worst way to show how you think, in my opinion. Vote for someone else instead of keeping quiet until its too late.

I remember when the revolution against Hosni Mubarak first kicked off, I was at work and people were complaining that they couldn't go to Egypt at that time, because flying there had been discouraged due to the unrest. I defended the Egyptian people by saying that they needed to get rid of their dictator leader, and when it is ever a 'good time' to set up a revolution? When it happens, it happens.

Even the country my father is from (Libya) are having big problems with militias and armed people in the streets. Our family has said not to go and visit right now, despite the fact that we don't really go for a holiday, its more of a catch-up with relatives. I don't want to be selfish and put my own enjoyment above obvious danger, which the Libyan people live with everyday, so I will wait until its safer, whenever that may be.

I would advise anyone thinking of going to Egypt not to go right now. Please, your enjoyment is not more important than the people of Egypt, and their right to a better life. Don't holiday in a country where the 'leader' doesn't stand for his people, but prefers to murder them instead. Don't help prop up a 'government' that forced their way in, kicked out the elected leader and put him in a farcical trial. For now, please choose somewhere else. The world is your oyster, go where people are not in obvious danger.

Anti-Vac causing chaos!

 I am a little bit fed up these days of seeing so much anti-vaccination stuff clogging my Facebook timeline. It's actually only a minority that think this way, yet they push and shove to tell people how much they hate vaccinations. To be clear, I am for vaccination, but not militant, but now I feel I have to almost constantly defend my choice. I never spoke of it before, because why do I need to tell everyone about it? It's a quiet choice I made in my own mind, yet anti-vac people will go around telling anyone who will listen that their children are unvaccinated, and probably wish their parents had not vaccinated them either. It's like vegetarians. Some of them are ok, and just get on with not eating meat, but then there are those who attack your choice to eat meat. Why? I do not go around saying you should eat meat and list the reasons why, no, I simply get on with my choice. I made that choice so I shouldn't push it on other people, as it might not be right for them.

I would never dream of forcing vaccination on someone, but they must consider that I went through the same pro/con research as them. I am not stupid and I read up about a lot of choices I make in my life. I don't want to go into anything unprepared if I can help it. To wrongly assume that pro-vac people haven't made an informed decision is foolish. In fact anyone who chooses something without knowing everything possible about it, makes a foolish choice. At least if you do your research you can safely say you made that choice with as much information as possible. I do this for everything, even down to buying a video game. If I don't know it well, I will read reviews, if an odd one mentions any kind of bug or glitch that may happen, I take it into account but realise that weighed up with all the other reviews, its most likely a more rare occurrence and only a few will come across it. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the people who suffer any rare effects of anything are not to be counted, but rather it just shows that the percentage is low. Don't we take a risk every time we drive somewhere? Walk somewhere? Go to work? We don't know when injury or death could occur. We take safety precautions as best we can, but still, we don't know for sure. I have heard of a few children getting knocked over by cars on my street, but it doesn't stop me crossing the road.

We even have things in our life that happen to us without warning, and there's nothing we can do about it. Once upon a time that used to scare me, as I sat comfortably (as one can be!) watching medical documentaries and being thankful that I had not yet needed surgery in my life, and hopefully never would! Yet at the age of 19 I developed appendicitis and became very ill, later discovering that my appendix had burst and required not only surgery, but a full cut and not keyhole as one would hope. I feel it made me stronger though. I had an image in my mind of what surgery would be like, and I surprised myself by being calm and listening to the doctors, nurses, my surgeon and the anesthetist. (not blindly you must understand, but I was in a state where surgery was my best and only option, and doctors know better than I do, having studied for years in their field!) To be honest, I think most people in that position would have just gone with the flow because when you are in severe pain (my sheet said I was given morphine at one point, and then I was put on tramadol, a very strong painkiller that made me fall asleep when given it) you will do anything to get rid of that pain. I never knew severe pain until that point, and haven't felt it since. It's not something you can imagine, as you can see from my previous bliss before the surgery!

My conclusion is that life comes with hurdles, the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. The choices we make can either help or hinder us in this path. I have no ill feeling towards anti-vaccination or vegetarians, but I do wish they would consider other people's opinions and that you can't tell someone they are wrong because of a choice they made. Leave them to it, concentrate on your own life and you will feel better about it. I never thought about anti-vac people before and I was fine. Of course I knew they existed, but I never felt I needed to verbally attack them. Let's be kind to one another and respect each others' life choices!

Catching up

 I realise I have neglected this blog for a very long time! But fear not, I've got my writing bug back again after a few setbacks, and I'm ready to blog again. I'm still waiting on my copy of 'Soldier for a Summer' (by Sam Najjair) to arrive from Amazon . Once it does, I will hopefully start reading it right away to prepare for my review. I might also do another beauty post, I'm still using a lot of trusty products, but have tried, or added a few more into the mix that have either helped, or hindered! I will give my honest opinion on those products very soon. I have even thought of mixing it up a little and maybe doing some food blogging.

I am also off to the Eurogamer Expo in London's Earls Court later this month. I might not be able to take a lot of photos due to me not being a member of the press, but I can at least review my visit, and decide whether or not its worth visiting next year or not. It will be my first time at a convention, and I'm so happy it's a gaming convention. It's right up my street and I'll be nerding out over everything! Looking forward to trying out Batman: Arkham Origins, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag and Lego Marvel Superheroes. I'm hoping to get Grand Theft Auto V not long after it's release date, but I need to replace the hard drive on my PS3 first. It's an 80gb fat model, but it really doesn't have enough storage space, so I'm opting for a 500gb hard drive to replace it. It seems easy enough to replace, and I'll be following an instructional video, plus I read a lot of reviews of people who have also replaced their hard drive and it's been fine afterwards. It's my only choice really, since a new PS3 is out of the question due to cost, so I may as well prolong the life of the one I already have.

Any questions or comments, you can either comment below or click 'Contact Me' to the left of this page. Thanks!

Soldier for a Summer by Sam Najjair - Review coming soon!

 I've just ordered a fantastic new book by an Irish-Libyan man named Sam Najjair from Dublin who fought in the Libyan revolution. The first and only book I read about the revolution was 'Colonel Gaddafi's Hat' by Sky News reporter Alex Crawford. It was a great read and one of only a few books I have actually bought, instead of just borrowing from the library. One of the reasons I also bought 'Soldier for a Summer' is because someday when I'm married with kids, these books will live on, and my kids can read them. I am someone who is very interested in history, and for my children this will be part of their history. Also for a long time there was literally nothing coming out of Libya, and if there was, it was all Gaddafi approved. There could be no books speaking against him, or any free press who could print whatever they liked. It was all a huge propaganda machine.

If you are interested in this book, you can listen to a fantastic podcast that was aired on radio in Ireland on 04/09/2013, you can listen to the interview here.

If you would like to buy the book, this is the link to buy from Amazon .

The review will be up once I've read it. I won't be rushing so it could be a few weeks. I also have the Eurogamer expo coming up later this month in Earl's Court, London, for which I will also post a full review. Thank you for reading!

Wimbledon 2012 - Nadal out!

 I cannot believe that Rafael Nadal has been knocked out of Wimbledon, and in the second round too! He was beaten 6-7 6-4 6-4 2-6 6-4 by a virtual unknown, Lukas Rosol, who is ranked 100. It defeats my wish of seeing Nadal vs Djokovic in the final though! At least Nadal won the French Open, for a record 7th time, about two weeks ago. He's still a good player, but I guess others have to rise through the rankings at some point. We have tennis at Wimbledon to look forward to in the Olympics too, what a great place to hold the tennis, it feels like a double Wimbledon!

Anders Breivik the Terrorist

 I am going to be the first person to dare to refer to Norwegian bomber/gunman Anders Breivik as a terrorist. No newspaper seems to want to call him a terrorist, even though he clearly is. If a bearded Muslim man had carried out such attacks, every newspaper article would refer to him as a terrorist. Let's be fair here and do the same for anyone who carries out killing on such a huge scale. Colour or religion should not even come into it, it should be about the crime committed. Breivik ironically killed mainly white people anyway, which I think kind of defeats what he was trying to achieve, which was madness anyway. Or is it? I actually think he is perfectly sane, my personal opinion is that he is an evil psychopath. Psychopaths don't show emotions such as remorse, they carry out an act and they stick to it afterwards, they don't regret any of it. Serial killers are the same, they would not have killed if they didn't mean to. It's just a shame Norway doesn't have the death penalty.

Also if you want to see how many newspapers and online news sites refer to Breivik as simply a mass murderer, and not a terrorist, just type 'Breivik mass murderer' into Google and see how many results come up.